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The study compares the effectiveness of two doses of cytarabine combined with set doses of daunomycin and etoposide as an initial course of chemotherapy to eliminate minimal residual disease. Subsequent therapy is tailored according to cytogenetic risk features, assessments of minimal residual disease, and availability of a suitable donor for bone marrow transplant. Patients with higher risk disease features are given more intense therapy. For higher risk groups, transplant is given to patients with suitable donors.

These patients should proceed to Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) as soon as possible. In cases where SCT is delayed (e.g., during searches for unrelated donors), these patients should receive chemotherapy according to their cytogenetic or morphologic subtype until the time of SCT.

MRD- patients (i.e., patients who were MRD- after ADE or after GO) will receive risk-based intensification (RBI)

Patients who are in first remission are eligible to be enrolled on the St. Jude protocols NKAML protocol and receive Natural Killer (NK) cell therapy instead of Consolidation III or after Consolidation III. At the discretion of their primary physician, these patients will be offered the option of enrolling on NKAML.

Some patients with biphenotypic leukemia respond poorly to AML-directed therapy, but respond quite well to lymphoid-directed therapy. Patients with such markers who have no response to induction I or who fail to achieve complete response (CR) after induction II will therefore receive lymphoid directed induction therapy. Other biphenotypic patients will continue to receive AML-directed therapy as described above

All patients will undergo lumbar puncture and receive an age-appropriate dose of intrathecal (IT) cytarabine at the time of diagnosis.

Patients without Central Nervous System disease (CNS)(i.e., less than 5 leukocytes per microliter of CSF (colony-stimulating factor) will receive one dose of intrathecal (IT) methotrexate, hydrocortisone, and cytarabine (MHA) with each course of chemotherapy beginning with induction II.

Patients with overt CNS leukemia (more or equal to 5 leukocytes per l microliter of CSF and the presence of leukemic blast cells on CSF cytospin) will receive weekly IT MHA therapy beginning 1 week after the initial dose of IT cytarabine and continuing until the CSF is free of blast cells (minimum number of doses, 4). These patients will then receive 4 additional doses of intrathecal therapy with methotrexate, hydrocortisone, and cytarabine (IT MHA) (minimum total number of doses, 8) at approximately 1-month intervals (generally given with each subsequent course of chemotherapy).

To estimate proportion of patients experiencing CTC Grade 3 or 4 toxicity during Induction II (Cytarabine + Daunomycin + Etoposide (ADE) + GO), who had no response to first course of induction therapy

To Estimate the Overall Event-free Survival (EFS) of AML Patients Who Undergo Risk-adapted and Genotype-directed Therapy [ Time Frame: Five Year ]

Overall event-free survival (EFS) was defined as the time from study enrollment to induction failure, relapse, secondary malignancy, death, or study withdrawal for any reason, with event-free patients censored on the date of the last follow-up

To Assess Whether Inhibition of DNA Synthesis is Greater After High-dose Ara-C (HDAC) Than After Low-dose Ara-C (LDAC) Therapy [ Time Frame: Measurements were assessed in Induction I chemotherapy ]

Inhibition of DNA synthesis is defined as the percentage of DNA synthesis rate at 24-hour post-araC treatment over DNA synthesis rate pre-araC treatment.

Relationship of Inhibition of DNA Synthesis and Clinical Response [ Time Frame: Measurements were assessed in Induction I chemotherapy ]

Clinical response is defined as MRD (minimal residual disease) measured by flow cytometry at day 22. The MRD at day 22 is classified as positive (with MRD) or negative (no detectable MRD). The relation between inhibition of DNA synthesis and MRD was performed by logistic regression. In the model, logit of probability of MRD positive was regressed on inhibition of DNA synthesis.

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